“Wu-Tang ClanÃ‚Â will survive.” God, we hope so. Wu-Tang Clan fans everywhere have been shaking their heads lately not so much in disbelief (they’ve had public squabbles before), but in disappointment at the Clan’s recent round of airing dirty laundry. Ghostface Killah, Raekwon and RZA have all spoken their piece on the subject, but what about the most visible member of the triumphant hip-hop unit? Method Man is keeping his mouth shut for now.

“There’s a reason why I ain’t spoke yet,” said Meth, standing next to the RZA recently in New York. “When the album drops, we can talk.”

“We’re here though,” RZA added. “We’re spreading the culture.”

Ghostface Killah, who was the first Wu member to go public with the group’s dissension, talked to us on Friday, just a couple of hours before he went onstage at the Hip Hop Live tour with Rakim. He let it be known that he doesn’t stand firmly behind the new Clan album, 8 Diagrams.

“I love the Clan and all that, but we got certain problems right now,” Ghost said. “Am I supporting the album? What’s going on in the air right now and all that … I’m supporting what I gotta do for right now for Ghostface. No disrespect to the album, I haven’t really listened to the project like that, but I heard the responses and I kinda had an idea it was gonna turn out however it turned out. No telling how the group situation is gonna be tomorrow a nice conversation or something to make your heart feel good. But as of right now, it’s two weeks before my albumThe Big Doe Rehab comes out on December 4; I’mma do what I gotta do for Tony Starks. I can’t worry about all this other stuff that’s trying to take me out my game.

“Everybody is grown men on that side,” he added about Wu-Tang. “There’s no way in the world we shouldn’t make the best album. You got me on your team, you got Rae, you got Meth, you got a dream team. The people been waiting for us for years, and to try and bake something that’s not all the way baked and ready and rushing, I don’t agree to that. So I’m not signing off on that. Don’t put my name on that. I don’t want people looking at me like, ‘Ghost, what did you do?’ I didn’t do nothing. Nobody wanted to listen. Yeah, I came in [during] the ninth inning because I been played with the past couple of years, so I wasn’t really going in on the Wu album. I was like, ‘Forget that, I’m not doing that. N—as owe me money.’ What I look like?”